Methods and systems for controlling a display screen with graphical objects for scheduling

ABSTRACT

Methods and systems of assigning an appraiser to perform a task are provided. A request may be evaluated to identify elements corresponding to the request. The elements may be evaluated to determine the task having a task a task parameter, such as conducting an appraisal. The task may comprise accepting an appraisal order, contacting a property owner, setting up a meeting, identifying comparable properties, confirming an appraisal time, submitting the appraisal report, or submitting a satisfaction survey. An appraiser database may be assessed to identify a group of appraisers having appraiser characteristics corresponding to the task parameter. Appraisal scores may be determined for the appraisers within the group of appraisers. The task may be assigned to an appraiser within the group of appraisers based upon the appraisal scores. Responsive to the task being assigned to the appraiser, an assignment notification may be provided to the appraiser.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a divisional of and claims priority to U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 15/648,394, titled “METHODS AND SYSTEMS FORCONTROLLING A DISPLAY SCREEN WITH GRAPHICAL OBJECTS FOR SCHEDULING” andfiled on Jul. 12, 2017, which is incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

Computing devices are used to implement various graphical services andproducts, such as preparing a loan. A computing device may provide agraphical user interface (GUI) with which a user may interact. The GUImay display various graphical objects. Such graphical objects mayprovide information about a service, such as scheduling of tasks, beingperformed by the computing device. Scheduled tasks may be stored withindatabases or other storage structures of a distributed networkenvironment (e.g., a cloud service), or within databases or otherstorage structures of a local computer. A user may interact with thegraphical objects to perform operations upon the scheduled tasks. Forexample, the graphical objects may be used to add new tasks, to removeexisting tasks, or to modify existing tasks, and new graphical objectsmay be created and displayed to represent the changes.

Lenders often secure loans by utilizing the equity in real estate ascollateral for loans. As part of the process of underwriting a loan tobe secured by real estate the value of the real estate being utilized ascollateral needs to be determined. In determining this value, a realestate appraisal is often ordered by the lender. The appraisal isperformed by an appraiser trained to assess relevant information aboutthe real estate in order to determine an estimation of the real estate'svalue. However, many aspects involved in the generation of an appraisalare highly subjective and/or objective in nature. Thus, identifying anappraiser with the proper experience/training can be an important taskbut is not always easy to achieve based upon a shortage/backlog ofappraisers available to perform appraisals in a timely manner as well asthe specific skills, competencies, experience and qualifications of theappraisers.

Still further, the loan process involves a great number of project teammembers performing a plurality of tasks in order to approve a loan for areal estate transaction. In an attempt to keep everyone up-to-date andorganized through this process, a great deal of information is exchangedon a regular basis.

In order to improve use of the GUI, reduce network bandwidth, processingand storage sources, and/or overall system load, it is desirable toefficiently identify and display acceptable time slots for new tasks viagraphical objects.

Unfortunately, project team members may fail to be aware of potentiallyrelevant updates and/or delays as a result of insufficientcommunication; and/or updating mechanisms (e.g., responsive to anappraiser sending an appraisal report to a first project team member nota second project team member, the second project team member may not bemade aware that the appraisal was performed in an efficient manner, ifat all). Responsive to a lack of communication, project team members maynot realize that a task has been completed and/or is not ready to becompleted. This can result in unnecessary delays and/or duplicative workbeing performed.

SUMMARY

In accordance with the present disclosure, one or more systems and/ormethods for assigning a valuation task (e.g., accept an appraisal order,contact a property owner to schedule an appraisal and/or an inspection,conduct the inspection or appraisal, collect additional informationnecessary to preparation of the appraisal report, prepare the appraisalreport, submit an appraisal report, etc.) are provided. In an example, arequest may be evaluated to identify appraisal elements corresponding tothe request. In an example, the request may comprise a project teammember submitting a loan document (e.g., an appraisal order/assignment,etc.) to an automation component and/or the project team member mayprovide the request by entering project information into a userinterface associated with the automation component. The appraisalelements may be evaluated to determine a valuation task (e.g., anappraisal, evaluation, valuation, automated valuation (AVM), brokerprice opinion (BPO), inspection and any sub-tasks of the foregoing orcascades of any as may be appropriate, or the like) having a taskparameter. In another example, at least one of a business rule, aproduct, or the appraisal element may be evaluated to determine thevaluation task. The valuation task may comprise accepting an appraisalorder or assignment, contacting a property owner, setting up a meeting,identifying comparable properties, confirming an appraisal time,conducting a property inspection, preparing an appraisal report,submitting the appraisal report, responding to question from a projectteam member, submitting a revised report, or submitting a satisfactionsurvey. An appraiser database may then be assessed to identify a groupof appraisers having appraiser characteristics corresponding to the taskparameter. Appraisal scores may be determined for the appraisers withinthe group of appraisers. In an example, the appraiser scores may bedetermined based upon a plurality of sub-scores (e.g., a qualitysub-score, a compliance sub-score, a distance sub-score, an experiencesub-score, an availability sub-score, etc.). The valuation task may beassigned to an appraiser within the group of appraisers based upon theappraisal scores. Responsive to the valuation task being assigned to theappraiser, an assignment notification may be provided to the appraiser.

In an example, a second valuation task may be identified from therequest. In another example, a specialty task (e.g., a notarizationtask, an inspection task, an attorney review task, etc.) may beidentified from the request. The valuation task, the second valuationtask, and/or the specialty task may be utilized to generate a workflowassociated with a real estate transaction. In an example, dynamic vendordue dates for the appraiser may be determined based upon historicalinformation. A date of anticipated completion for tasks within theworkflow may be updated based upon the dynamic vendor due date.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

While the techniques presented herein may be embodied in alternativeforms, the particular embodiments illustrated in the drawings are only afew examples that are supplemental of the description provided herein.These embodiments are not to be interpreted in a limiting manner, suchas limiting the claims appended hereto.

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a scenario involving various examples ofnetworks that may connect servers and clients.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a scenario involving an exampleconfiguration of a server that may utilize and/or implement at least aportion of the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of a scenario involving an exampleconfiguration of a client that may utilize and/or implement at least aportion of the techniques presented herein.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrating an example method for assigning avaluation task.

FIG. 5A is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forassigning an appraisal task to an appraiser from a group of appraisers,wherein appraisal elements are identified from a loan document.

FIG. 5B is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forassigning an appraisal task to an appraiser from a group of appraisers,wherein business rules are identified for a first lender.

FIG. 5C is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forassigning an appraisal task to an appraiser from a group of appraisers,wherein a set of task parameters for an appraisal task are identifiedfrom appraisal elements and business rules.

FIG. 5D is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forassigning an appraisal task to an appraiser from a group of appraisers,wherein a group of appraisers is identified from an appraiser databasebased upon appraiser characteristics.

FIG. 5E is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forassigning an appraisal task to an appraiser from a group of appraisers,wherein a second group of appraisers is identified from a group ofappraisers.

FIG. 5F is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forassigning an appraisal task to an appraiser from a group of appraisers,wherein a preferred appraiser is identified based upon an appraisalscore.

FIG. 5G is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forassigning an appraisal task to an appraiser from a group of appraisers,wherein an assignment notification is provided to an appraiser through amobile device.

FIG. 6 is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forgenerating a workflow comprising a set of appraisal tasks.

FIG. 7 is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forgenerating a workflow comprising a plurality of loan related tasks.

FIG. 8A is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forgenerating a workflow, wherein the workflow comprises a plurality oftasks having current statuses and due dates.

FIG. 8B is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forgenerating a workflow, wherein the workflow is updated based upon arejection event.

FIG. 8C is a component block diagram illustrating an example system forgenerating a workflow, wherein the workflow is updated in response to aweather delay event.

FIG. 9 is an illustration of a scenario featuring an examplenon-transitory memory device in accordance with one or more of theprovisions set forth herein.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Subject matter will now be described more fully hereinafter withreference to the accompanying drawings, which form a part hereof, andwhich show, by way of illustration, specific example embodiments. Thisdescription is not intended as an extensive or detailed discussion ofknown concepts. Details that are known generally to those of ordinaryskill in the relevant art may have been omitted, or may be handled insummary fashion.

The following subject matter may be embodied in a variety of differentforms, such as methods, devices, components, and/or systems.Accordingly, this subject matter is not intended to be construed aslimited to any example embodiments set forth herein. Rather, exampleembodiments are provided merely to be illustrative. Such embodimentsmay, for example, take the form of hardware, software, firmware, or anycombination thereof.

1. Computing Scenario

The following provides a discussion of some types of computing scenariosin which the disclosed subject matter may be utilized and/orimplemented.

1.1. Networking

FIG. 1 is an interaction diagram of a scenario 100 illustrating aservice 102 provided by a set of servers 104 to a set of client devices110 via various types of networks. The servers 104 and/or client devices110 may be capable of transmitting, receiving, processing, and/orstoring many types of signals, such as in memory as physical memorystates.

The servers 104 of the service 102 may be internally connected via alocal area network 106 (LAN), such as a wired network where networkadapters on the respective servers 104 are interconnected via cables(e.g., coaxial and/or fiber optic cabling), and may be connected invarious topologies (e.g., buses, token rings, meshes, and/or trees). Theservers 104 may be interconnected directly, or through one or more othernetworking devices, such as routers, switches, and/or repeaters. Theservers 104 may utilize a variety of physical networking protocols(e.g., Ethernet and/or Fibre Channel) and/or logical networkingprotocols (e.g., variants of an Internet Protocol (IP), a TransmissionControl Protocol (TCP), and/or a User Datagram Protocol (UDP). The localarea network 106 may include, e.g., analog telephone lines, such as atwisted wire pair, a coaxial cable, full or fractional digital linesincluding T1, T2, T3, or T4 type lines, Integrated Services DigitalNetworks (ISDNs), Digital Subscriber Lines (DSLs), wireless linksincluding satellite links, or other communication links or channels,such as may be known to those skilled in the art. The local area network106 may be organized according to one or more network architectures,such as server/client, peer-to-peer, and/or mesh architectures, and/or avariety of roles, such as administrative servers, authenticationservers, security monitor servers, data stores for objects such as filesand databases, business logic servers, time synchronization servers,and/or front-end servers providing a user-facing interface for theservice 102.

Likewise, the local area network 106 may comprise one or moresub-networks, such as may employ differing architectures, may becompliant or compatible with differing protocols, and/or mayinteroperate within the local area network 106. Additionally, a varietyof local area networks 106 may be interconnected; e.g., a router mayprovide a link between otherwise separate and independent local areanetworks 106.

In the scenario 100 of FIG. 1, the local area network 106 of the service102 is connected to a wide area network 108 (WAN) that allows theservice 102 to exchange data with other services 102 and/or clientdevices 110. The wide area network 108 may encompass variouscombinations of devices with varying levels of distribution andexposure, such as a public wide-area network (e.g., the Internet) and/ora private network (e.g., a virtual private network (VPN) of adistributed enterprise).

In the scenario 100 of FIG. 1, the service 102 may be accessed via thewide area network 108 by a user 112 of one or more client devices 110,such as a portable media player (e.g., an electronic text reader, anaudio device, or a portable gaming, exercise, or navigation device); aportable communication device (e.g., a camera, a phone, a wearable or atext chatting device); a workstation; and/or a laptop form factorcomputer. The respective client devices 110 may communicate with theservice 102 via various connections to the wide area network 108. As afirst such example, one or more client devices 110 may comprise acellular communicator and may communicate with the service 102 byconnecting to the wide area network 108 via a wireless local areanetwork 106 provided by a cellular provider. As a second such example,one or more client devices 110 may communicate with the service 102 byconnecting to the wide area network 108 via a wireless local areanetwork 106 provided by a location such as the user's home or workplace(e.g., a WiFi network or a Bluetooth personal area network). In thismanner, the servers 104 and the client devices 110 may communicate overvarious types of networks. Other types of networks that may be accessedby the servers 104 and/or client devices 110 include mass storage, suchas network attached storage (NAS), a storage area network (SAN), orother forms of computer or machine readable media.

1.2. Server Configuration

FIG. 2 presents a schematic architecture diagram 200 of a server 104that may utilize at least a portion of the techniques provided herein.Such a server 104 may vary widely in configuration or capabilities,alone or in conjunction with other servers, in order to provide aservice such as the service 102.

The server 104 may comprise one or more processors 210 that processinstructions. The one or more processors 210 may optionally include aplurality of cores; one or more coprocessors, such as a mathematicscoprocessor or an integrated graphical processing unit (GPU); and/or oneor more layers of local cache memory. The server 104 may comprise memory202 storing various forms of applications, such as an operating system204; one or more server applications 206, such as a hypertext transportprotocol (HTTP) server, a file transfer protocol (FTP) server, or asimple mail transport protocol (SMTP) server; and/or various forms ofdata, such as a database 208 or a file system. The server 104 maycomprise a variety of peripheral components, such as a wired and/orwireless network adapter 214 connectible to a local area network and/orwide area network; one or more storage components 216, such as a harddisk drive, a solid-state storage device (SSD), a flash memory device,and/or a magnetic and/or optical disk reader.

The server 104 may comprise a mainboard featuring one or morecommunication buses 212 that interconnect the processor 210, the memory202, and various peripherals, using a variety of bus technologies, suchas a variant of a serial or parallel AT Attachment (ATA) bus protocol; aUniform Serial Bus (USB) protocol; and/or Small Computer SystemInterface (SCI) bus protocol. In a multibus scenario, a communicationbus 212 may interconnect the server 104 with at least one other server.Other components that may optionally be included with the server 104(though not shown in the schematic diagram 200 of FIG. 2) include adisplay; a display adapter, such as a graphical processing unit (GPU);input peripherals, such as a keyboard and/or mouse; and a flash memorydevice that may store a basic input/output system (BIOS) routine thatfacilitates booting the server 104 to a state of readiness.

The server 104 may operate in various physical enclosures, such as adesktop or tower, and/or may be integrated with a display as an“all-in-one” device. The server 104 may be mounted horizontally and/orin a cabinet or rack, and/or may simply comprise an interconnected setof components. The server 104 may comprise a dedicated and/or sharedpower supply 218 that supplies and/or regulates power for the othercomponents. The server 104 may provide power to and/or receive powerfrom another server and/or other devices. The server 104 may comprise ashared and/or dedicated climate control unit 220 that regulates climateproperties, such as temperature, humidity, and/or airflow. Many suchservers 104 may be configured and/or adapted to utilize at least aportion of the techniques presented herein.

1.3. Client Device Configuration

FIG. 3 presents a schematic architecture diagram 300 of a client device110 whereupon at least a portion of the techniques presented herein maybe implemented. Such a client device 110 may vary widely inconfiguration or capabilities, in order to provide a variety offunctionality to a user such as the user 112. The client device 110 maybe provided in a variety of form factors, such as a desktop or towerworkstation; an “all-in-one” device integrated with a display 308; alaptop, tablet, convertible tablet, or palmtop device; a wearable devicemountable in a headset, eyeglass, earpiece, and/or wristwatch, and/orintegrated with an article of clothing; and/or a component of a piece offurniture, such as a tabletop, and/or of another device, such as avehicle or residence. The client device 110 may serve the user in avariety of roles, such as a workstation, kiosk, media player, gamingdevice, and/or appliance.

The client device 110 may comprise one or more processors 310 thatprocess instructions. The one or more processors 310 may optionallyinclude a plurality of cores; one or more coprocessors, such as amathematics coprocessor or an integrated graphical processing unit(GPU); and/or one or more layers of local cache memory. The clientdevice 110 may comprise memory 301 storing various forms ofapplications, such as an operating system 303; one or more userapplications 302, such as document applications, media applications,file and/or data access applications, communication applications such asweb browsers and/or email clients, utilities, and/or games; and/ordrivers for various peripherals. The client device 110 may comprise avariety of peripheral components, such as a wired and/or wirelessnetwork adapter 306 connectible to a local area network and/or wide areanetwork; one or more output components, such as a display 308 coupledwith a display adapter (optionally including a graphical processing unit(GPU)), a sound adapter coupled with a speaker, and/or a printer; inputdevices for receiving input from the user, such as a keyboard 311, amouse, a microphone, a camera, and/or a touch-sensitive component of thedisplay 308; and/or environmental sensors, such as a global positioningsystem (GPS) receiver 319 that detects the location, velocity, and/oracceleration of the client device 110, a compass, accelerometer, and/orgyroscope that detects a physical orientation of the client device 110.Other components that may optionally be included with the client device110 (though not shown in the schematic diagram 300 of FIG. 3) includeone or more storage components, such as a hard disk drive, a solid-statestorage device (SSD), a flash memory device, and/or a magnetic and/oroptical disk reader; and/or a flash memory device that may store a basicinput/output system (BIOS) routine that facilitates booting the clientdevice 110 to a state of readiness; and a climate control unit thatregulates climate properties, such as temperature, humidity, andairflow.

The client device 110 may comprise a mainboard featuring one or morecommunication buses 312 that interconnect the processor 310, the memory301, and various peripherals, using a variety of bus technologies, suchas a variant of a serial or parallel AT Attachment (ATA) bus protocol;the Uniform Serial Bus (USB) protocol; and/or the Small Computer SystemInterface (SCI) bus protocol. The client device 110 may comprise adedicated and/or shared power supply 318 that supplies and/or regulatespower for other components, and/or a battery 304 that stores power foruse while the client device 110 is not connected to a power source viathe power supply 318. The client device 110 may provide power to and/orreceive power from other client devices.

In some scenarios, as a user 112 interacts with a software applicationon a client device 110 (e.g., an instant messenger and/or electronicmail application), descriptive content in the form of signals or storedphysical states within memory (e.g., an email address, instant messengeridentifier, phone number, postal address, message content, date, and/ortime) may be identified. Descriptive content may be stored, typicallyalong with contextual content. For example, the source of a phone number(e.g., a communication received from another user via an instantmessenger application) may be stored as contextual content associatedwith the phone number. Contextual content, therefore, may identifycircumstances surrounding receipt of a phone number (e.g., the date ortime that the phone number was received), and may be associated withdescriptive content. Contextual content, may, for example, be used tosubsequently search for associated descriptive content. For example, asearch for phone numbers received from specific individuals, receivedvia an instant messenger application or at a given date or time, may beinitiated. The client device 110 may include one or more servers thatmay locally serve the client device 110 and/or other client devices ofthe user 112 and/or other individuals. For example, a locally installedwebserver may provide web content in response to locally submitted webrequests. Many such client devices 110 may be configured and/or adaptedto utilize at least a portion of the techniques presented herein.

2. Presented Techniques

One or more systems and/or techniques for assigning a task is provided.Many workflow assignment techniques may lack a capability to identify aproper set of tasks to accomplish a project goal and/or lack anefficient means of selecting appropriate individual (e.g., project teammembers) for performing project tasks (e.g., scheduling an appraisal,conducing an appraisal, submitting an appraisal report, setting up ameeting to sign closing documents, setting up an inspection, arrangingfor a notary to be a signing event, etc.). For example, many assignmenttechniques/processes may assign tasks, such as valuation task to projectteam members, such as appraisers that are not as qualified as otherappraisers to perform said tasks. As provided herein, a request may beevaluated to identify request elements (e.g., notary elements, appraisalelements, surveyor elements, etc.) corresponding to the request. In anexample, the request may comprise a project team member (e.g., a lender,a borrower, an appraiser, an inspector, a seller, a notary, an attorney,a mortgage broker, etc.) submitting a loan application to an automationcomponent. The request elements may be evaluated to determine a task(e.g., provider task, such as an appraisal task) having one or more taskparameters. A service provider database (e.g., an appraiser database, aninspector database, an automated valuation provider database, a notarydatabase, an attorney database, etc.) may be assessed to identify agroup of providers (e.g., an appraiser, a notary, an attorney, asurveyor, and/or other specialists, etc.) having providercharacteristics corresponding to the task parameter. Provider scores(e.g., appraisal scores, inspector scores, vendor scores, notary scores,etc.) may be determined for the providers within the group of providers.In an example, the provider score may be determined based upon aplurality of sub-scores. The task may be assigned to a provider withinthe group of providers based upon the provider scores. In an example, aplurality of tasks may be organized into a workflow based upon at leastone of a business rule, a product requirement, and/or provider elements.In an example, tasks (e.g., valuation tasks) may be assigned to a hostof providers, such as real estate agents (e.g., for broker priceopinions), lay practitioners (e.g., for evaluations), software engineers(e.g., for automated valuations), inspectors (e.g., for propertycondition inspections, bifurcated inspections, such as where theappraiser performs a desktop appraisal and relies on a third party toperform the required inspection, etc.).

By assigning tasks to providers, such as appraisers, vendors, employees,or the like, based upon provider scores, project team member'sexperiences may be improved as a result of the most qualified providers,which may otherwise not have been assigned the task, being assigned thetask. Moreover, project team members may prioritize variousconsiderations, such as selecting the most experienced providers for agiven task and/or meeting other requirements/objectives set forth bylenders (e.g., appraisers experienced in performing appraisals onwaterfront properties may be assigned a waterfront property appraisaltask, a lender that prioritizes reducing time to closing may prioritizeavailability sub-scores over an experience sub-score thereby favoringappraisers having greater availability, etc.). Additionally, byutilizing the workflow, a project team member experience may be improvedbecause irrelevant communications, which the project team members mayhave otherwise had to view, may not be provide to the project teammembers (e.g., only notification associated with a particular projectteam member may be provided to said project team member, project teammembers may utilize a user interface associated with the workflow toaccess relevant information regarding task statuses at theirconvenience). For example, by providing project team members withrelevant notification of status updates, project team members are lesslikely to inefficiently search for communications related to importantstatus updates and/or duplicate requests for updates from other projectteam members, which may in turn mitigate wasted computing resources andtime (e.g., reduced labor time, reduced server/platform time, etc.)otherwise spent attempting to obtain relevant status updates associatedwith tasks (e.g., reduce search engine and/or email server usage trafficthat results from additional searches being performed, reduce time spentresponding to duplicative update requests, etc.). Additionally, byautomating the assignment process and tracking/update process, projectteam members may be able to more efficiently respond to challenges(e.g., providers rejecting a task assignment), delays (e.g., weatherdelays, life event delays, etc.) and/or unexpected project advancements(e.g., appraiser has a cancelation and is able to complete an appraisal5 days ahead of schedule, etc.) as they occur in real time and/or nearreal time. Accordingly, computing resources may be reduced, project teammember efficiency may be improved, and project team members'satisfaction may be improved.

An embodiment of assigning a valuation task is illustrated by an examplemethod 400 of FIG. 4. At 402, the method 400 starts. At 404, a requestis evaluated to identify request elements (e.g., appraisal elements)corresponding to the request. In an example, the request may be providedby a project team member (e.g., a loan officer, a buyer, a seller, arefinancer, a notary, an appraiser, etc.). For example, the project teammember may provide the request by entering request information into auser interface associated with an automation component (e.g., theproject team member may log into the user interface and provide detailsassociated with an appraisal that needs to be conducted as part of aloan process, such as by providing a property address and/or selectingan appraisal product from drop down menu displayed by the userinterface, etc.). In another example, the request may be evaluated inresponse to a document, such as a loan document (e.g., the request maycomprise the loan application or other document being provided) beingprovided to the automation component (e.g., the loan application may beuploaded by a loan officer, a buyer may fill out the loan applicationdirectly within the user interface, etc.). Content identificationmethods may be employed to evaluate the request (e.g., the loandocument) to identify the task elements. The content identificationmethods may employ image recognition and processing techniques (e.g.,the text of a loan document may be evaluated utilizing textual andcontextual recognition processes to determine that the propertyassociated with the loan application is a single family home, etc.). Inan example, third party databases may be utilized to identify therequest elements (e.g., an address from the document may be utilized toquery a county auditor database to determine that the propertyassociated with the address is a single family home).

In an example, the request element may comprise location elements, timeelements, credit score elements, debt to income ratio elements, propertyelements, appraisal product elements, complexity score elements, lenderrequirement elements, fee type elements, loan type elements, dynamicrequirement elements, or business rule exception elements. The requestelements may correspond to buyer information (e.g., name, address,credit score, etc.), seller information, lender information (e.g.,contact information for the lender), property information (e.g., aproperty address, a property type, a square footage of property, daysthe property has been on the market, previous sale price, etc.), loaninformation (e.g., loan amount, interest rate, loan term, closingrequirements, etc.), product information (e.g., single family appraisal,distance a comparable property can be from an appraised property,allowable variation in square footage for comparable properties, etc.),or dynamic requirement elements. In an example, dynamic requirementelements may be identified from inputs provided to customizable fieldsdisplayed within the user interface. In this way, the project teammembers can provide custom requirements for carrying out the tasks whensubmitting the request.

At 406, the request elements may be evaluated to identify a valuationtask having one or more task parameters. In an example, machine learningtechniques may be employed to evaluate the request elements to determinethe valuation tasks. The machine learning techniques may comprisesupervised learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning,classification modeling, clustering, structured prediction, or neuralnetwork computations. In an example, one or more fields from a loandocument may be identified and evaluated to identify inputs provided byproject team members. The inputs may be processed utilizing by machinelearning techniques to identify the valuation task and the correspondingtask parameters. In another example, a product element may be utilizedto identify a corresponding valuation task (e.g., a single familyappraisal product may have one or more valuation tasks that have beenpredetermined to be associated therewith)

In an example, the valuation task may comprise an action or actionsassociated with a valuation, appraisal, lending, and/or projectmanagement process. For example, the valuation task may compriseaccepting an appraisal, contacting a property owner, setting up ameeting, identifying comparable properties (e.g., properties havingsimilar attributes, such as size, location, age, build quality, etc.),confirming an appraisal time, conducting an appraisal, preparing anappraisal report, submitting the appraisal report, responding toquestion from a project team member, submitting a revised report,submitting a satisfaction survey, or the like. In an example, thevaluation task may be an appraisal task. The appraisal task may beassociated with a real estate appraisal, a car appraisal, a boatappraisal, a jewelry appraisal, an antique appraisal, a companyappraisal, an estate appraisal, a collectable goods appraisal (e.g., acard collection appraisal, a comic book appraisal, a coin collectionappraisal, a gun collection appraisal, a book collection appraisal, arecord collection appraisal, etc.), artwork appraisal, or anintellectual property portfolio appraisal. In an example, a real estateappraisal task may comprise performing a commercial property appraisal,a single family home appraisal, a rental property appraisal, a condoappraisal, a land appraisal, or the like.

The task parameters may comprise detail regarding how the appraisal taskis to be performed. The task parameters may comprise period ofperformance parameters (e.g., an appraisal may need to be completedwithin 15 days of an appraisal being accepted by an appraiser, anappraisal report may need to be submitted within 48 hours of anappraisal being completed, etc.), provider location parameters (e.g., anproviders office must with within a 10 miles of a property), comparableproperty parameters, experience parameters (e.g., property typeexperience parameters, location experience parameters, etc.),availability parameters, license requirement parameters, payment termparameters (e.g., vendor requested fee, bank standard fee, performancebased fee, etc.), performance score parameters, or the like.

In an example, the request element may be utilized to access a businessrule database to identify a business rule associated with the valuationtask (e.g., one or more rules pre-set by a lender that submitted therequest). The business rule may correspond to a product and/or lender.The business rule may comprise a location rule, an experience rule, aworkload rule, a service rule, a performance rule, a licensure rule, aloan type rule, a loan amount rule, or the like. Put differently, thebusiness rule may comprise requirements that must be met for valuationtasks associated with particular request elements (e.g., a location rulemay require that an provider's office must be within 13 miles of aproperty location if the property is in an urban area and/or theprovider's office must be within a 30 miles of a property location ifthe property is in a rural area). In an example, the business ruleand/or the request element may be utilized to determine the taskparameter for the valuation task.

In an example, responsive to a business rule exception element beingidentified, a task parameter may be determined based upon the businessrule exception element and not the business rule. For example, a firstlender may have defined a first business rule corresponding to a 17-dayperformance period for all appraisals requested (e.g., all appraisalsfor the first lender must be completed within 17 days of receiving anappraisal request). However, responsive to a business rule exceptionelement corresponding to a 10-day performance period being identified,the business rule exception element, but not the business rule, may beutilized to determine the task parameter for the valuation task (e.g.,the business rule exception will supersede the business rule therebymaking the period of performance for this particular appraisal 10 days).

In an example, a workflow may be generated based upon the valuation taskand/or an appraisal review (e.g., an appraisal review may generate anappraisal risk score that may be utilized to drive/structure theworkflow and create operational efficiencies). The workflow may comprisea plurality of valuation tasks (e.g., accept an appraisal assignment,set up a meeting to conduct an appraisal, submit appraisal, etc.). Thework flow may be displayed by the user interface. In an example, theworkflow may be updated in real time or near real time based upon statusupdates for the valuation tasks. The workflow may comprise a set ofvaluation tasks, a set of task statuses associated with the valuationtasks within the set of valuation tasks (e.g., in progress, completed,delayed, in queue, etc.), a date of completion and/or a date ofanticipated completion for the valuation tasks. In an example, at leastone of a business rule, the request element or the valuation task may beutilized to generate a workflow (e.g., responsive to the first valuationtask being identified, a business rule associated with the firstvaluation task may indicate that a series of other task are to beincluded in the workflow). In another example, a dynamic vendor due datemay be determined for the provider based upon historical informationassociated with the provider. The date of anticipated completion fortasks within the workflow may be updated based upon the dynamic vendordue date (e.g., if the appraiser historically takes 4 days to submit areport after a multi-family appraisal is completed, the anticipatedcompletion date for a submitting appraisal report task may be updated to4 days). In an example, the workflow may be generated in real timeand/or near real time in response to an order being created (e.g., theworkflow may be generated in response to a request being received, suchas a loan document being provided or a project team member utilizing auser interface to create an order). The workflow may be created as acustom workflow that is uniquely tailored elements, such as producttype, geography, client, and business rules.

At 408, a provider database (e.g., an appraiser database, a notarydatabase, an inspector database, etc.) may be assessed to identify agroup of providers (e.g., appraisers, inspectors, notaries, attorneys,auditors, etc.) having provider characteristics (e.g., appraisercharacteristics, inspector characteristics, etc.) corresponding to thetask parameter. In an example, the provider characteristic may comprisea location characteristic (e.g., location of the appraisers office,location of the appraisers home, etc.), an experience levelcharacteristic (e.g., apprentice with 1 year of experience, licensedappraiser with 2 years of experience, licensed appraiser with 10 yearsof experience, etc.), an availability characteristic (e.g., appraiser isbusy for next 3 days, appraiser is busy for the next 4 weeks, appraiseris retired, etc.), a specialty characteristic, a license characteristic(e.g., is the appraiser license, which state is the appraiser licensedin, is the appraisers license active, etc.), or a travel distancecharacteristic (e.g., distance the appraiser is willing to travel). Inan example, the specialty characteristic may comprise a property typespecialty (e.g., an appraiser may have significant experience ortraining in appraising waterfront properties, ski lodges, farms, 30+unit commercial properties, commercial land, etc.) or a locationspecialty (e.g., an appraiser may have significant experience and/ortraining with properties in a specific zip code, an urban area, ruralarea, etc.). In an example, each appraiser in a group of appraisers maybe assigned a performance score. The appraisers within the group ofappraisers may be further grouped into tiers based upon their respectiveperformance scores.

The provider database may comprise a repository for storing and managinginformation associated with providers, such as provider characteristics.In an example, the provider database may comprise at least one of arelational database, an object oriented database, a key value database,a distributed provider database (e.g., open source provider database, abigtable appraiser database, etc.), a directory services providerdatabase, or a virtual machine provider database. The information may beprovided to the provider database by the providers. For example, theproviders may generate provider profiles containing informationassociated with the provider. In an example, the information may beobtained from data sources accessible via at least on of an internet(e.g., the World Wide Web), an intranet, or a remote host server. Thedata sources may comprise webpages, such as a county auditor web page, alocal newspaper webpage, a community blog webpage, a federal licensingwebpage, a state licensing webpage, a social media webpage, or the like.In an example, the information may comprise provider interests. Theprovider interests may be identified from a social media page associatedwith the provider and/or directly by the provider providing saidprovider interests.

In an example, a query may be created based upon the task parameters forthe valuation task. The query may be utilized to identify providerswithin the provider database having provider characteristics thatcorrespond to the task parameters. The query may comprise a queryrequest having search request parameters (e.g., databases to search,expansion policies, expansion protocols for meta tags, wildcardexpressions, relevance scoring parameters, device identificationinformation, search timeframe parameters, etc.). The search requestparameters may be utilized to expand the query to generate an expandedquery. In an example, the expanded contact query may comprise alternatespellings for information associated with the request elements,alternative licensure accreditations, alternate mapping coordinates(e.g., zip code, g.p.s, longitude/latitude, etc.), or the like.

At 410, provider scores may be determined for providers within the groupof providers. In an example, a first provider score may be determinedfor a first provider within the group of providers and a second providerscore may be determined for a second provider within the group ofproviders. The provider scores may be generated based upon historicalinformation associated with the providers and/or providercharacteristics.

The provider score may comprise sub-scores, such as a distance sub-score(e.g., an provider located within 4 miles of a property to be appraisedmay have a higher distance score than a second provider located within12 miles from the property to be appraised, etc.), a quality sub-score(e.g., an provider that has had 10 reports sent back in the last year tocorrect mistakes, such as an incorrect property address may have ahigher quality score than the second provider that has had 24 reportssent back in the last year), a service sub-score (e.g., a higher servicescore may be assigned to the provider in response to the provider:accepting tasks within 24 hours, attempting to schedule an appraisalwithin 48 hours, or submitting appraisal reports within 48 hours ofconducting an appraisal), a performance sub-score, an experiencesub-score (e.g., sub-score based upon feedback from previous projectteam members), a compliance sub-score (e.g., is the provider currentlyin compliance with all and/or some state and federal regulations), anavailability sub-score (e.g., an provider that is available to conductan appraisal in 4 days may have a higher availability score than asecond provider that is available to conduct the appraisal in 14 days),remaining volume sub-score (e.g., score that is indicative of how manyother appraisals the provider needs to complete), or the like. Thequality score may be indicative of a number of errors identified inprevious appraisal, such as was a report sent back to provide missinginformation (e.g., address, date of appraisal, etc.), was informationincorrectly utilized in the report (e.g., wrong address, wrong sellername, etc.), was there a violation of lender business rules, and/or wasan explanation provided for non-compliance matters (e.g., did theappraiser explain why no comparable properties were identified within alender set proximity range, etc.).

In an example, the provider score may comprise an interest sub-score.The interest score may be determined based upon a provider interest forthe provider corresponding to a project team member interest (e.g., anappraiser and a property owner that both have an interest in collectingbaseball cards may be determined to have a high interest score, etc.).In this way, the project team members may be connected with otherproject team members having similar interest thereby leading to animproved project team member experience.

In an example, a weighing component may apply a weighing factor to atleast one of the sub-scores to generate weighted scores. The weightedscores may be utilized to generate the provider scores for the providerswithin the group of providers. The weighing factors may be determinedbased upon weighting parameters learned from training data. In anotherexample, the weighing factor may be applied to the sub-scores by aproject team member by utilizing a toggle displayed by the userinterface. In yet another example, the weighing factor may be applied tothe sub-scores based upon business rules associated with a lenderorganization. The weighing factor may be indicative of an importance ofa particular sub-score (e.g., the more important the sub-score is to aproject team member, the greater the weight may be for that sub-score).For example, responsive to a first sub-score having a larger weighingfactor than a second sub-score, the first sub-score may have a greaterimpact on the overall provider score.

At 412, the valuation task may be assigned to a provider within thegroup of providers based upon the provider scores. In an example, thevaluation task may be assigned to the first provider in response to thefirst provider score being greater than the second provider score. Theproviders within the group of providers may be ranked based upon theprovider scores for the providers within the group of providers. Forexample, the first provider may be prioritized above the second providerresponsive to the provider score of the first provider being indicativeof the first provider being better suited to perform the valuation taskwithin the task parameters and/or in accordance with the lender businessrules. In this way, project team members may have qualified providers(or other professionals as applied to other tasks) assigned based uponobjective metrics and real-time and/or near real-time information fromthe providers.

In an example, responsive to the valuation task being assigned to theprovider, a notification may be provided to the provider. Thenotification may comprise at least one of a push notification, an emailnotification, a text notification, a virtual reality notification, or anaugmented reality notification. In an example, the automation componentbeing hosted on a first platform may send the notification to a secondplatform and/or the mobile device of the provider. The notification maybe displayed within a user interface associated with the mobile device.In an example, the notification may comprise a summary element (e.g., asummary of the valuation task, a summary of a result of a valuation taskbeing completed, etc.), a messaging element, a related contactnotification element, and/or a services element. The summary element maycontain text describing the valuation task including a due date, paymentterms, or the like. In an example, the summary element may be generatedbased upon the task parameters. The messaging element may be utilized bya project team member or provider to send a message to another projectteam member (e.g., the provider may message other project team membersto inform them the appraisal was not performed because the propertyowner or real estate agent was not at the property for the appraisal).In an example, the message may comprise a text message, a voice message,a social media message, an augmented reality message, a virtual realitymessage, an email message, a message board message, and/or an automationsystem message. In an example, the user may compose, edit, and send themessage from the user interface (e.g., the messaged may be composedwithin the same mobile application associated with the notification).The related contact notification element may be utilized toautomatically populate a message to a property owner to schedule a timefor the valuation task. In an example, responsive to the user selectingthe related contact notification element, a list of other contactsassociated with project team members may be displayed within the userinterface (e.g., if the valuation task is associated with a particularoffice within the lender's company, a list of project team memberswithin that particular office may be populated in a messaging element ofthe notification).

In an example, a contact database may be generated from the requestelements. For example, contact information for the project team membersmay be identified from the request elements task (e.g., the names,addresses, emails, and phone numbers for the buyer, seller, loanofficer, spouse of the buyer, etc. may be identified from the loandocument and compiled into a contact database associated with thevaluation task). The contact information may be correlated and stored inthe contact database (e.g., names, addresses, phone numbers, employersand other relevant information for the project team members may beidentified from loan documents and categorized, respectively). In anexample, the automation component may utilize the request elements(e.g., names of project team members) to access third party informationto generate the contact database. For example, local contacts (e.g.,contacts added to an electronic address book on the mobile device)and/or unified contacts (e.g., contacts synced from a plurality ofsources, such as social media accounts, cloud based address books, emailcontact lists, client lists, etc.) may be assessed to generate thecontact database. In an example, the contact database may comprisecontact information for a first project team member identified from amobile phone address book and contact information for a second projectteam member identified from the loan document (e.g., a global contactdatabase). The contact database may be utilized by project team membersto efficiently and effectively locate contact information for otherproject team members, such as without the need to search through aplurality of loan documents and/or other communication, to locatecontact information needed to complete the valuation tasks. In anotherexample, the automation component may access the contact database toidentify contact information of an individual associated with anvaluation task and provide the contact information for the individual tothe provider in a notification (e.g., responsive to the appraiseraccepting an appraisal assignment for a property, an email may bedelivered to the appraiser containing the contact information for aseller of the property and/or a spouse of the seller).

In an example, responsive to the provider accepting the valuation task,a calendar of the provider may be assessed to identify a schedule ofavailability for the provider (e.g., a calendar hosted on a mobiledevice of the provider may be accessed to determine when the provider isfree to conduct the valuation task). The schedule of availability maycomprise one or more potential meeting times for performing thevaluation task. The one or more potential meeting times may be providedto a property owner as potential meeting times for performing thevaluation task. In an example, the provider may preapprove potentialmeeting times, which may be automatically provided to the property ownerin response to the provider accepting the valuation task (e.g., theprovider may set up a schedule of availability for performing valuationtasks). In another example, the one or more potential meeting times maybe prepopulated into a custom message displayed within the userinterface which the provider may edit and/or elect to send to theproperty owner.

In an example, the provider may access the workflow through a firstplatform. The first platform may comprise hardware associated with amobile device, an operating system running on the mobile device, and/oran application (e.g., a mobile application, a cloud based application, aweb browser based application, etc.). In an example, the first platformmay be associated with the mobile device of a project team member (e.g.,the first platform may be hosted by a smartphone). The provider databaseand/or the automation component may be located on and/or assessedthrough a second platform, such as a cloud based platform. Responsive tothe valuation task being completed, the workflow may be updated in realtime or near real time in response to the completion of the valuationtask (e.g., the status of the task may be updated to completed and/orthe projected due dates for other valuation tasks may be updated, etc.).

In an example, responsive to completing the task, an automated messagecomponent may be utilized to generate an automated message associatedwith the task being completed. Responsive to generating the automatedmessage, the automated message may be displayed to the project teammembers and/or project team members associated with the valuation task(e.g., responsive to a provider completing an appraisal, a loan officermay be sent an automated message that the appraisal was completed and anappraisal report will be provided to the loan officer within forty-eighthours). In an example, the automated message may be generated based uponat least one of the status of a task, the workflow, historicalinformation for the provider and/or provider availability information(e.g., responsive to completing the appraisal, the automated messagestating that the appraisal report will be provided to the loan officerwithin forty-eight hours may be generated based upon the next task inthe work flow being submitting the appraisal report to the loan officer,the provider having availability within the next forty-eight hours tocomplete the appraisal report, and/or the historical information for theprovider indicating that the provider typically submits appraisalreports within forty-eight hours).

In an example, a set of notifications associated with a plurality ofvaluation tasks may be displayed to the user through the user interface.The notifications within the set of notifications may be ranked basedupon a priority and/or relevance to a particular project team member.For example, a first status update notification associated with aprovider task may be ranked higher than a second status updatenotification associated with a lender task based upon the provideraccessing the second platform. In yet another example, the second statusupdate notification may be ranked higher than the first status updatenotification based upon the lender accessing the second platform. Inthis way, project team members may be efficiently provided with the mostrelevant notifications.

In an example, the notification may comprise commenting capabilities.The commenting capabilities may comprise a link to a message board, acommunication portal, or messaging service (e.g., a message boardassociated with the workflow, a message board associated with a thirdparty website or portal, such as a bank communication portal, a localmessage board or instant messenger service native to the associatedmobile application, etc.).

By utilizing notifications for valuation tasks and/or the workflowevents, an overall user experience may be improved because thenotifications may comprise relevant content associated with assignedtasks that otherwise may not have been identified. The task quality andexperience will also be improved as the most qualified and/or suitedproviders will assigned based upon, inter ilia, the providercharacteristics and the request elements.

In an example, a secondary task may be assigned to a specialistassociated with the secondary task (e.g., a second provider may performa second task). The secondary task may comprise abstractor task, anotary task, a closing document task (e.g., preparing a trust totransfer a property into at closing, preparing a quick claim deed,etc.), a home inspection task, an insurance inspection task, a surveyortask, title search task, title insurance task, moving task, or the like.The specialist (e.g., second provider) may comprise an abstractor, anotary, a closing attorney, a home inspector, an insurance inspector, asurveyor, a title agent, a moving consultant, or the like. In anexample, the workflow may comprise the valuation task and the secondarytask. In this way, users and/or project team members may moreefficiently and effectively track the status of a task, such as anappraisal or inspection as well as other aspects of a property purchaseand/or loan closing. Moreover, the workflow allows providers as well asother specialist to more accurately determine when a task should beginas well as well when a task is due.

In an example, a first task event associated with the valuation task(e.g., a status update may be provided based upon the providercompleting the appraisal) and a second task event associated with asecond valuation task (e.g., a second status update may be provided inresponse to the provider submitting an appraisal report) may be recordedin a workflow database. Responsive to the first task event beingrecorded, a first save point for the workflow database corresponding tothe first task event may be created in a history database and responsiveto the second task event being recorded, a second save point for theworkflow database corresponding to the second task event may be createdin the history database. In this way, the status of task within aworkflow may be recoverable in the event of a database failure and/ormistaken status updates.

In an example, in response to receiving a request to modify a schedulingdata structure that includes a plurality of tasks, the request may bedetermined to be directed towards scheduling a valuation task. A requestdata structure may be generated comprising request elementscorresponding to the request. The request data structure may be analyzedto determine a valuation task having a task parameter. A provider datastructure may be assessed from a database via a network communication.The provider data structure may be analyzed to identify a group ofproviders having provider characteristics corresponding to the taskparameter. Provider scores may be determined for providers within thegroup of providers. The scheduling data structure may be modified andregenerated based upon the provider scores, to assign the valuation taskto a provider within the group of providers. In an example, a displayscreen, such as on a mobile device or computer, may be controlled todisplay an assignment notification to the provider. In another example,the display screen may be controlled to update a workflow, such as basedupon the status of a task being updated.

At 414, the method 400 ends.

FIGS. 5A-5G illustrate examples of a system 500 wherein an automationcomponent 502 is configured to provide an appraisal task 522 to anappraiser through a mobile device 566. In an example, the system 500 maybe configured as a software as a service model having physicallyseparated databases that can be located and/or attached to variousdifferent networks having various different security protocols (e.g., afirst database of appraisers may be located on a cloud server of alicensor and a second database containing loan information may belocated on a bank network behind a bank firewall, etc.). In this way,enhanced security measures may be implemented and licensees may be ableto utilize existing security protocols without the need to makesignificant alterations to said protocols to incorporate/grant access tothe software as a service model. FIG. 5A illustrates an example 501 ofthe system 500 where a first lender 504 provides a loan document 506 tothe automation component 502. In an example, the loan document 506 maycomprise one or more other documents, such as appraisal order documents,questionnaire documents, order request documents, or the like. Theautomation component 502 may be configured to evaluate the loan document506 to identify a set of appraisal elements 508. For example, theautomation component 502 may utilize machine learning processes toidentify the set of appraisal elements 508 from the loan document 506.The set of appraisal elements 508 may comprise location element 510 a,property type element 510 b, property owner contact info element 510 c,credit score element 510 d, complexity score element 510 e, and/or firstlender element 510 f. In this way, the appraisal elements 510 a-510 fmay be automatically identified from the loan document 506 and/orsimilar documents with a no human processing and/or a reduced amount ofhuman processing.

FIG. 5B illustrates an example 511 of the system 500 wherein the set ofappraisal elements 508 are utilized by the automation component 502 toassess a business rule database 512. In an example, the automationcomponent 502 may generate a business rule query 518 based upon one ormore of the appraisal elements within the set of appraisal elements 508,such as the location element 510 a, the property type element 510 e,and/or the first lender element 510 f. The automation component 502 mayexpand information associated with the appraisal elements to generatethe business rule query 518. In an example, the business rule query 518may comprise alternate spellings of names, addresses, or the like forproject team members. In another example, the business rule query 518may comprise expanded location classifications based upon addresses andmap data (e.g., a first address element from the loan document may beexpanded to be classified as corresponding to a rural address, a secondaddress may be expanded to be classified as a corresponding to awaterfront location, etc.). The automation component 502 may utilize thebusiness rule query 518 to access the business rule database 512 toidentify a set of business rules associated with the appraisal elements508. In an example, the automation component 502 may identify a set offirst lender business rules 514 that correspond to the first lender (notillustrated) based upon first lender element 510 f (e.g., one or morebusiness rules pre-set by the lender that submitted the appraisalrequest may be identified by the automation component). The set of firstlender business rules 514 may comprise a location rule 516 a, anexperience rule 516 b, or a licensure rule 516 c. The set of firstlender business rules 514 may comprise requirements that must be met ifa particular element is associated with the loan document (notillustrated). For example, the location rule 516 a may require that anappraiser's office must be within 10 miles of a property location if theproperty is in an urban area and/or the appraiser's office must bewithin a 40 miles of a property location if the property is in a ruralarea.

FIG. 5C illustrates an example 521 of the system 500 wherein theautomation component 502 is configured to determine an appraisal task522 having a set of task parameters 524. For example, the automationcomponent 502 may be configured to evaluate the appraisal elements 508and the set of first lender business rules 514 to determine the set oftask parameters 524. The set of task parameters 524 may comprise aperiod of performance parameter 526 a, a property type experienceparameter 526 b, a license requirement parameter 526 c, a proximityrange parameter 526 d, an appraiser performance score parameter 526 e,or a payment term parameter 526 f. In an example, the proximity rangeparameter 526 d may be determined to be 10 miles based upon the locationelement 510 a corresponding to an urban area and the location rule 516 arequiring that an appraiser's office must be within 10 miles of theproperty if the property is in an urban area. The other task parameterswithin the set of task parameters 524 may be determined in a similarmanner (e.g., the period of performance parameter 526 a may bedetermined to be 13 days based upon the property type element 510 ecorresponding to a single family home and period of performance rulerequiring that appraisals on single family homes must be completedwithin 13 days of acceptance; the license requirement parameter 526 cmay require an Ohio appraiser license based upon the location element510 a corresponding to Ohio, the complexity score element 510 ecorresponding to a high score, and the experience rule 516 b requiringthat a licensed appraiser must complete the appraisal if the complexityscore is high; etc.).

FIG. 5D illustrates an example 531 of the system 500 wherein theautomation component 502 is configured to identify a group of appraisers538 from an appraiser database 532. In an example, the automationcomponent 502 may utilize task parameters for the appraisal task 522,such as the proximity range parameter 526 d to access the appraiserdatabase 532. The appraiser database 532 may comprise a plurality ofappraisers, such as a first appraiser 534 a, a second appraiser 534 b, athird appraiser 534 c, a forth appraiser 534 d, a fifth appraiser 534 e,a sixth appraiser 534 f, and a seventh appraiser 534 g. The firstappraiser 534 a may have a first appraiser characteristic 536 acorresponding to the first appraisers office being 5 miles away from theappraisal property, the second appraiser 534 b may have a secondappraiser characteristic 536 b corresponding to the second appraisersoffice being 15 miles away from the appraisal property, the thirdappraiser 534 c may have a third appraiser characteristic 536 ccorresponding to the third appraisers office being 2 miles away from theappraisal property, the forth appraiser 534 d may have a forth appraisercharacteristic 536 d corresponding to the forth appraisers office being32 miles away from the appraisal property, the fifth appraiser 534 e mayhave a fifth appraiser characteristic 536 e corresponding to the fifthappraisers office being 11 miles away from the appraisal property, thesixth appraiser 534 f may have a sixth appraiser characteristic 536 fcorresponding to the sixth appraisers office being 9 miles away from theappraisal property, and the seventh appraiser 534 g may have a seventhappraiser characteristic 536 g corresponding to the seventh appraisersoffice being 7 miles away from the appraisal property. In an example,the appraiser characteristics 534 a-534 g may be provided by theappraisers by manual entering the appraiser characteristics 534 a-534 ginto the appraiser database 532 and/or the appraisal characteristics 534a-534 g may be determined by the automation component 502 based uponinformation associated with the respective appraiser (e.g., theautomation component 502 may determine the proximity distance for thefirst appraiser 534 a by evaluating the first appraisers office locationand the property address). Responsive to the proximity range parameter526 d corresponding to 10 miles, the first appraiser 534 a, the thirdappraiser 534 c, the sixth appraiser 534 f, and the seventh appraiser534 g but not the second appraiser 534 b, the forth appraiser 534 d, thefifth appraiser 534 e, may be determined to be in the group ofappraisers based upon the appraiser characteristics 534 a-534 g. In thisway, appraisers meeting the appraisal task parameters may be identifiedand grouped together.

FIG. 5E illustrates an example 541 of the system 500 wherein theautomation component 502 is configured to identify a second group ofappraisers 544 from the group of appraisers 538 based upon the licenserequirement parameter 526 c (e.g., a second parameter). In an example,the automation component 502 may utilize the license requirementparameter 526 c to access the group of appraisers 538 having licensecharacteristics 542 a-542 d (e.g., a type of appraiser characteristic)to identify the second group of appraisers 544. In an example, the firstappraiser 534 a may have a first license characteristic 542 acorresponding to not having an Ohio appraiser license, the thirdappraiser 534 c may have a second license characteristic 542 bcorresponding to having an Ohio appraiser license, the sixth appraiser534 f may have a third license characteristic 542 c corresponding tohaving an Ohio appraiser license, and the seventh appraiser 534 g mayhave a forth license characteristic 536 g corresponding to having anOhio appraiser license.

FIG. 5F illustrates an example 551 of the system 500 wherein theautomation component 502 is configured to identify the sixth appraiser534 f as a preferred appraiser 556 from the second group of appraisers544. The automation component 502 may be configured to determineappraiser scores 552 a-552 c for the second group of appraisers 544. Inan example, the first appraiser score 552 a may be calculated based uponsub-scores, such as a distance score 553 a, a quality score 553 b, aservice score 553 c, a performance score 553 d, an experience score 553e, compliance score (not illustrated), availability score (noillustrated), or the like. The sub-scores 553 a-553 e for the sixthappraiser 534 f may be determined based upon how well the appraisercharacteristics for the sixth appraiser 534 f correspond to the taskparameters, historical information for the sixth appraiser 534 f, and/orreal-time appraiser characteristics for the sixth appraiser 534 f (e.g.,a higher availability score may be assigned to the sixth appraiser 534 fin response to the sixth appraiser 534 f having 4 appraisal tasks in hiswork queue and a lower availability score may be assigned to the thirdappraiser 534 c in response to the third appraiser 534 c having 8appraisal tasks in his work queue).

A score evaluation component 554 may be configured to evaluate theappraisal scores 552 a-552 c to determine a preferred appraiser 556(e.g., an appraiser that is most suited to perform the appraisal task).The score evaluation component 554 may be configured to weight thesub-scores 552 a-552 c based upon a weighing factor assigned by aproject team member to generate weighted scores 558 a-558 c,respectively. In an example, the project team member utilize toggleelements displayed on a user interface (not illustrated) to assignweighing factors to sub-scores 552 a-552 c based upon an importance ofparticular sub-score to the project team member (e.g., the quality score553 b may be given 10 percent more value by the lender than theexperience score 553 e). Responsive to the first weighted score 558 afor the sixth appraiser 534 f being greater than the second weight core558 b of the third appraiser 534 c and the third weighted score 558 cfor the seventh appraiser 534 g, the sixth appraiser 534 f may beidentified from the second group of appraisers 544 as the preferredappraiser 556.

FIG. 5G illustrates an example 561 of the system 500 wherein theautomation component 502 is configured to provide a task notification564 to the sixth appraiser 534 f through a mobile device 566. In anexample, the automation component 502 may be configured to be hosted ona cloud based platform 562. The automation component 502 may utilize awireless network to send the task notification 564 to a mobileapplication 565 running on the mobile device 566. Responsive to themobile device 566 receiving the task notification 564, the tasknotification 564 may be configured to be displayed on a display 568 ofthe mobile device 566. The task notification 564 may comprise anappraisal task summary element 569 a (e.g., a summary of the details ofthe appraisal task 522, such as the location of the property, the timethe appraiser has to complete the appraisal task, payment terms, etc.),an acceptance element 569 b, or a rejection element 569 c. Responsive tothe sixth appraiser 534 f selecting the acceptance element 569 b, anacceptance notification 570 may be provided to the automation component502. The acceptance element 569 b may be indicative of the sixthappraiser 534 f accepting the appraisal task 522.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a system 600 wherein an automationcomponent 602 is configured to generate a workflow 612. The automationcomponent 602 may be configured to evaluate appraisal elements 604 andlender business rules 606 to access a product database 608 to identifyan appraisal product from a set of products 609. The set of appraisalproducts 609 may comprise a single family home appraisal product 610 a,a multi-family home appraisal product 610 b, and a drive-by appraisalproduct 610 c. Responsive to the appraisal elements 604 and/or thelender business rules 606 corresponding to the multi-family homeappraisal product 610 b, the multi-family home appraisal product 610 bmay be identified as the product associated with a request from a lender(not illustrated). The automation component 602 may be configured togenerate the workflow 612 for the multi-family appraisal product 610 b.The workflow 612 may comprise a set of appraisal tasks 615 associatedwith the multi-family home appraisal product 610 b. The set of appraisaltasks 615 may comprise a first appraisal task 614 a, a second appraisaltask 614 b, and a third appraisal task 614 c. In an example, the firstappraisal task 614 a may be assigned to a lender, the second appraisaltask 614 b may be assigned to an appraiser, and the third appraisal task614 c may be assigned to a barrower (e.g., the first appraisal task 614a may be for the lender to provide a missing property address for anappraisal, the second appraisal task 614 b may be for an appraiser toconduct an appraisal, and the third appraisal task 614 c may be for thebarrower to respond to a question submitted by the appraiser).

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of a system 700 wherein an automationcomponent 702 is configured to generate a workflow 716. The automationcomponent 702 may be configured to evaluate request elements 704 andlender business rules 706 to access a product database 708 to identify aset of products 714 from the product database 708. The product database708 may comprise an appraisal service product 712 a, a notarizationservice product 712 b, a property inspection service product 712 c, asurveyor service product 712 d, an attorney service product 712 e, orthe like. In an example, the automation component 702 may determinebased upon the request elements 704 and the lender business rules 706that the appraisal service product 712 a, the notarization serviceproduct 712 b, and the property inspection service product 712 c, butnot the surveyor service product 712 d and the attorney service product712 e, should be included in the set of products 714. The automationcomponent 702 may be configured to generate the workflow 716 based uponthe set of products 714, the request elements 704, and/or the lenderbusiness rules 706. The workflow 716 may comprise a set of tasks 715associated with the set of products 714. The set of tasks 715 maycomprise may comprise a first appraisal task 718 a, a first propertyinspection task 718 b, a second appraisal task 718 c, a first notarytask 718 d, a first barrower task 718 e, and/or a first lender task 718f (e.g., the first appraisal task 718 a may be to coordinate with aninspector to confirm the home inspection is completed on a propertybefore the appraisal is performed, the first property inspection task718 b may be to perform the home inspection on the property, the secondappraisal task 718 c may be to perform the appraisal on the property,the first notary task 718 d may be to schedule a notary to be presentfor the singing of a closing document, the first barrower task 718 e maybe to mail the notarized closing document to the lender, and the firstlender task 718 f may be to release the funds to the seller of theproperty). In this way, the tasks, services, and/or products needed toperform a real estate purchase transaction or the like may beefficiently and/or effectively coordinated across a plurality of projectteam members from a plurality of service providers.

FIGS. 8A-8C illustrate examples of a system 800 wherein a workflow 804is generated by an automation component 802. FIG. 8A illustrates anexample 801 of the system 800 wherein a user interface 803 is configuredto display the workflow 804 generated by the automation component 802.The workflow 804 may comprise a set of tasks associated with anappraisal product (not illustrated). The set of tasks may comprise aselect appraiser task 806 a, a send notification to appraiser task 806b, an acceptance task 806 c, a notify property contact task 806 d, a setappointment task 806 e, a perform appraisal task 806 f, a send appraisalreport task 806 g, and/or an invoice lender for appraisal task 806 h.The automation component 802 may be configured to display current taskstatuses 808 a-808 h for tasks 806 a-806 h within the workflow 804. Thecurrent task statuses 808 a-808 h may be indicative of the completionstate of tasks 806 a-806 h (e.g., the status may indicate if a task hasbeen completed, if the task is in progress, if the task is next to becompleted, if the task is in a work que, etc.). The automation component802 may be configured to display status dates 810 a-810 h for the tasks806 a-806 h. The status dates 810 a-810 h may be indicative of acompletion date (e.g., status dates 810 a-810 b may be indicative of anactual completion date) and/or a projected completion date (e.g., statusdates 810 c-810 h may be indicative of a projected completion date) forthe tasks 806 a-806 h. The status dates 810 a-810 h may be generated bythe automation component 802 based upon historical information for therespective task, appraiser, and/or project team member. In an example,the status dates 810 a-810 h may be updated in real time and/or nearreal time by the automation component 802. In an example, the statusdates 810 a-810 h may utilize visual elements (not illustrated) toindicate the completion state of the tasks 806 a-806 h (e.g., task thathave been completed may be displayed in green text, tasks that are inprogress may be displayed in a yellow text, tasks that are in que may bedisplayed in a blue text, tasks that are behind schedule may bedisplayed in a red text, etc.).

FIG. 8B illustrates an example 821 of the system 800 wherein theautomation component 802 is configured to update the workflow 804 basedupon a rejection event 822. The rejection event 822 may be received bythe automation component 802 in response to the appraiser (notillustrated) rejecting an assignment of an appraisal task. Responsive tothe automation component 802 receiving the rejection event 822, theworkflow 804 may be updated in real time with updates 824. Updates 824may comprise additional tasks 826 a-826 c, status updates 828 a-828 d,and/or updated status dates 829 a-829 g. For example, responsive to theautomation component 802 receiving the rejection event 822, a selectsecond appraiser task 826a, a send second notification to secondappraiser task 826 b, and/or a second appraiser task accepted task 826 cmay be added to the workflow 804. Responsive to the rejection event 822being received by the automation component 802, a rejected status 828 amay be provided for the appraiser task accepted task 806 c. Responsiveto a second appraiser (not illustrated) being selected and/or therejection event 822 being received, the workflow 804 may be updated withupdated status dates 829 a-829 g. The updated status dates 829 a-829 gmay be generated in response to historical appraisal informationassociated with the second appraiser.

FIG. 8C illustrates an example 831 of the system 800 wherein theautomation component 802 is configured to update the workflow 804 basedupon a weather delay event 832. The weather delay event 832 may bereceived by the automation component 802 in response to a snow stormhitting an area associated with a property to be appraised. Responsiveto the automation component 802 receiving the weather delay event 832,the workflow 804 may be updated in real time with updates 834. Updates834 may comprise updated status dates 839 a-839 c. Responsive to theweather delay event 832 being indicative of the snow storm lasting 2days, the workflow 804 may be updated with updated status dates 839a-839 c (e.g., the estimated completion dates may be updated to reflecta two day delay based upon the snow storm as well as accounting forappraiser availability, weekends, holidays, etc.). In this way, projectteam members may be able to efficiently and effectively have access toreal time updates regarding the status of tasks, such as tasksassociated with a loan approval process for a real estate transaction.

FIG. 9 is an illustration of a scenario 900 involving an examplenon-transitory memory device 902. The non-transitory memory device 902may comprise instructions that when executed perform at least some ofthe provisions herein. The non-transitory memory device may comprise amemory semiconductor (e.g., a semiconductor utilizing static randomaccess memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM), and/orsynchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) technologies), aplatter of a hard disk drive, a flash memory device, or a magnetic oroptical disc (such as a CD, DVD, or floppy disk). The examplenon-transitory memory device 902 stores computer-readable data 904 that,when subjected to reading 906 by a reader 910 of a device 908 (e.g., aread head of a hard disk drive, or a read operation invoked on asolid-state storage device), express processor-executable instructions912. In some embodiments, the processor-executable instructions, whenexecuted on a processor 916 of the device 908, are configured to performa method, such as at least some of the example method 400 of FIG. 4, forexample. In some embodiments, the processor-executable instructions,when executed on the processor 916 of the device 908, are configured toimplement a system, such as at least some of the example system 500 ofFIGS. 5A-5G, at least some of the example system 600 of Fig.6, at leastsome of the example system 700 of FIG. 7, and/or at least some of theexample system 800 of FIGS. 8A-8C, for example.

3. Usage of Terms

As used in this application, “component,” “module,” “system,”“interface,” and/or the like are generally intended to refer to acomputer-related entity, either hardware, a combination of hardware andsoftware, software, or software in execution. For example, a componentmay be, but is not limited to being, a process running on a processor, aprocessor, an object, an executable, a thread of execution, a program,and/or a computer. By way of illustration, both an application runningon a controller and the controller can be a component. One or morecomponents may reside within a process and/or thread of execution and acomponent may be localized on one computer and/or distributed betweentwo or more computers.

Unless specified otherwise, “first,” “second,” and/or the like are notintended to imply a temporal aspect, a spatial aspect, an ordering, etc.Rather, such terms are merely used as identifiers, names, etc. forfeatures, elements, items, etc. For example, a first object and a secondobject generally correspond to object A and object B or two different ortwo identical objects or the same object.

Moreover, “example” is used herein to mean serving as an example,instance, illustration, etc., and not necessarily as advantageous. Asused herein, “or” is intended to mean an inclusive “or” rather than anexclusive “or”. In addition, “a” and “an” as used in this applicationare generally be construed to mean “one or more” unless specifiedotherwise or clear from context to be directed to a singular form. Also,at least one of A and B and/or the like generally means A or B or both Aand B. Furthermore, to the extent that “includes”, “having”, “has”,“with”, and/or variants thereof are used in either the detaileddescription or the claims, such terms are intended to be inclusive in amanner similar to the term “comprising”.

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the subject matter defined in the appended claims is notnecessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above.Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed asexample forms of implementing at least some of the claims.

Furthermore, the claimed subject matter may be implemented as a method,apparatus, or article of manufacture using standard programming and/orengineering techniques to produce software, firmware, hardware, or anycombination thereof to control a computer to implement the disclosedsubject matter. The term “article of manufacture” as used herein isintended to encompass a computer program accessible from anycomputer-readable device, carrier, or media. Of course, manymodifications may be made to this configuration without departing fromthe scope or spirit of the claimed subject matter.

Various operations of embodiments are provided herein. In an embodiment,one or more of the operations described may constitute computer readableinstructions stored on one or more computer readable media, which ifexecuted by a computing device, will cause the computing device toperform the operations described. The order in which some or all of theoperations are described should not be construed as to imply that theseoperations are necessarily order dependent. Alternative ordering will beappreciated by one skilled in the art having the benefit of thisdescription. Further, it will be understood that not all operations arenecessarily present in each embodiment provided herein. Also, it will beunderstood that not all operations are necessary in some embodiments.

Also, although the disclosure has been shown and described with respectto one or more implementations, equivalent alterations and modificationswill occur to others skilled in the art based upon a reading andunderstanding of this specification and the annexed drawings. Thedisclosure includes all such modifications and alterations and islimited only by the scope of the following claims. In particular regardto the various functions performed by the above described components(e.g., elements, resources, etc.), the terms used to describe suchcomponents are intended to correspond, unless otherwise indicated, toany component which performs the specified function of the describedcomponent (e.g., that is functionally equivalent), even though notstructurally equivalent to the disclosed structure. In addition, while aparticular feature of the disclosure may have been disclosed withrespect to only one of several implementations, such feature may becombined with one or more other features of the other implementations asmay be desired and advantageous for any given or particular application.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for assigning an appraiser to perform avaluation task comprising: identifying an appraisal element within arequest; identifying a business rule associated with the request basedupon the appraisal element; determining a valuation task having aspecified task parameter based upon the appraisal element and thebusiness rule; identifying a group of one or more appraisers havingappraiser characteristics corresponding to the specified task parameter;determining appraiser scores for appraisers within the group of one ormore appraisers; and assigning the valuation task to an appraiser withinthe group of one or more appraisers based upon the appraiser scores. 2.The method of claim 1, wherein: the request is a loan documentassociated with a real estate transaction, the method comprisesreceiving the loan document, and identifying the appraisal elementwithin the request comprises programmatically searching the loandocument to identify the appraisal element.
 3. The method of claim 1,comprising: sending an assignment notification to the appraiserresponsive to assigning the valuation task to the appraiser.
 4. Themethod of claim 1, wherein: the request is a document associated with areal estate transaction, and the method comprises: identifying a secondappraisal element based upon the request; and generating a workflowassociated with the real estate transaction based upon the secondappraisal element.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein identifying thegroup of one or more appraisers comprises: generating a query requestbased upon the specified task parameter; submitting the query request toa provider database; and receiving, in response to submitting the queryrequest, the group of one or more appraisers.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein determining the appraiser scores comprises, for a firstappraiser: determining a first sub-score for a first metric anddetermining a second sub-score for a second metric, and computing anappraiser score for the first appraiser based upon the first sub-scoreand the second sub-score, wherein a weight applied to the firstsub-score and a weight applied to the second sub-score in computing theappraiser score is a function of information in the request.
 7. Themethod of claim 1, wherein determining the appraiser scores comprises,for a first appraiser: determining one or more social interests of thefirst appraiser; and comparing the one or more social interests of thefirst appraiser to one or more social interests of a project leaderresponsible for overseeing the valuation task to compute a commonalityscore indicative of a degree of commonality between the one or moresocial interests of the first appraiser and the one or more socialinterests of the project leader.
 8. The method of claim 1, whereindetermining the appraiser scores comprises, for a first appraiser:determining a first sub-score for a first metric and determining asecond sub-score for a second metric, and computing an appraiser scorefor the first appraiser based upon the first sub-score and the secondsub-score, wherein a weight applied to the first sub-score and a weightapplied to the second sub-score in computing the appraiser score is afunction of the business rule.
 9. The method of claim 1, comprising,after assigning the valuation task to the appraiser: receiving a firsttask event associated with the valuation task; and responsive to thefirst task event being recorded in a workflow database, creating a firstsave point for the workflow database corresponding to the first taskevent in a history database.
 10. The method of claim 9, comprising:receiving a second task event associated with the valuation task; andresponsive to the second task event being recorded in the workflowdatabase, creating a second save point for the workflow databasecorresponding to the second task event in the history database.
 11. Amethod of assigning an appraiser to perform a real estate valuationtask, comprising: receiving a loan document associated with a realestate transaction; evaluating the loan document to identify one or moreelements associated with the loan document; accessing a business ruledatabase utilizing the one or more elements to identify a set ofbusiness rules associated with the loan document; evaluating the one ormore elements and the set of business rules to determine a first taskhaving a first set of task parameters; assessing an appraiser databaseto identify a group of one or more appraisers having appraisercharacteristics corresponding to the first set of task parameters;determining appraiser scores for appraisers within the group of one ormore appraisers, wherein a first appraiser score is determined for afirst appraiser within the group of one or more appraisers and a secondappraiser score is determined for a second appraiser within the group ofone or more appraisers; and responsive to the first appraiser scorebeing greater than the second appraiser score, assigning the first taskto the first appraiser.
 12. The method of claim 11, comprising:identifying a second task having a second set of task parameters;assessing a specialist database to identify a group of one or morespecialists having characteristics corresponding to the second set oftask parameters; determining specialist scores for specialists withinthe group of one or more specialists; and assigning the second task to aspecialist from the group of one or more specialists based upon thespecialist scores.
 13. The method of claim 12, comprising: generating aworkflow based upon the first task and the second task; and coordinatingcompletion of the first task and the second task through a userinterface associated with the workflow.
 14. The method of claim 11,comprising, after assigning the first task to the first appraiser:receiving a first task event associated with the first task; andresponsive to the first task event being recorded in a workflowdatabase, creating a first save point for the workflow databasecorresponding to the first task event in a history database.
 15. Themethod of claim 14, comprising: receiving a second task event associatedwith the first task; and responsive to the second task event beingrecorded in the workflow database, creating a second save point for theworkflow database corresponding to the second task event in the historydatabase.
 16. The method of claim 11, comprising: sending an assignmentnotification to the first appraiser responsive to assigning the firsttask to the appraiser.
 17. A non-transitory computer readable mediumcomprising computer executable instructions that when executed by aprocessor perform a method for assigning an appraiser to perform avaluation task comprising: identifying an appraisal element within arequest; determining a valuation task having a specified task parameterbased upon the appraisal element; identifying a group of one or moreappraisers having appraiser characteristics corresponding to thespecified task parameter; determining appraiser scores for appraiserswithin the group of one or more appraisers, comprising, for a firstappraiser: determining a first sub-score for a first metric anddetermining a second sub-score for a second metric, and computing anappraiser score for the first appraiser based upon the first sub-scoreand the second sub-score, wherein a weight applied to the firstsub-score and a weight applied to the second sub-score in computing theappraiser score is a function of information in the request; andassigning the valuation task to an appraiser within the group of one ormore appraisers based upon the appraiser scores.
 18. The non-transitorycomputer readable medium of claim 17, comprising, after assigning thevaluation task to the appraiser: receiving a first task event associatedwith the valuation task; and responsive to the first task event beingrecorded in a workflow database, creating a first save point for theworkflow database corresponding to the first task event in a historydatabase.
 19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17,wherein determining the first sub-score comprises, for the firstappraiser: determining one or more social interests of the firstappraiser; and comparing the one or more social interests of the firstappraiser to one or more social interests of a project leaderresponsible for overseeing the valuation task to compute a commonalityscore indicative of a degree of commonality between the one or moresocial interests of the first appraiser and the one or more socialinterests of the project leader.
 20. The non-transitory computerreadable medium of claim 17, wherein: the request is a documentassociated with a real estate transaction, and the method comprises:identifying a second appraisal element based upon the request; andgenerating a workflow associated with the real estate transaction basedupon the second appraisal element.